Revealed: Who are the wealthiest people in Yorkshire?

Philip Meeson the CEO of Dart Group...Pictured at the Double Tree Hilton Hotel, Leeds..29th January 2013....Picture By Simon Hulme

Published:00:53Updated:16:11Friday 05 May 2017

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The owner of airline Jet2.com has seen his wealth plummet by £90m following the Brexit vote, according to data published in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List.

Philip Meeson was one of many airline owners to have been hit hard by last summer’s EU referendum result and Mr Meeson saw his fortune descend to £296m.

Jack Tordoff , Individual Award for Excellence

Mr Meeson, a former RAF pilot who left school at 16 and later became a five-time British aerobatics champion, remains chairman and chief executive at Jet2.com with a 38 per cent stake worth £275m.

The airline mogul, who made his first fortune as a car dealer, initially importing Citroën 2CVs before moving upmarket to open a BMW dealership, fell from eight to tenth in list of Yorkshire’s wealthiest people, published in this weekend’s edition of the title.

The combined wealth of the 20 richest people in Yorkshire has risen by £403m since last year’s edition of the Rich List and they are now collectively worth over £10.6bn.

Mr Meeson is the only person in the top 20 to see their wealth fall in the past 12 months.

Date:27th October 2016. Picture James Hardisty.'Philanthropist Terry Bramall, from Yorkshire, with his wife Liz.

Duty free impresario Robert Miller holds on to his position as the richest person in Yorkshire, being worth a total of £1.58bn.

Mr Miller, who is set to turn 84 later this month, co-founded the Hong Kong-based Duty Free Shoppers (DFS) chain with Alan Parker in 1960, specialising in airport shops.

The French group LVMH bought a controlling interest in 1998 and Miller retains a 38.75 per cent stake.

Born in America but also a British citizen, Miller owns a home in London and the 36,000-acre Gunnerside Estate, in North Yorkshire. His daughter Marie-Chantal, 48, is the crown princess of Greece.

Meadowhall multimillionnaire Eddie Healey, one of the investors in Jenic

Fellow Yorkshire residents named in this year’s Rich List include West Retail Group brothers Eddie and Malcolm Healey who saw their collective wealth grow by £50m, keeping them in second place at £1.48bn.

Their West Retail Group, which includes Wren Kitchens and the electronics retailer Ebuyer, enjoyed a record year in 2015, with sales soaring to £446m. Malcolm lives on a sprawling East Yorkshire estate.

Eddie is best known as the developer along with Paul Sykes (ranked fifth in the Yorkshire Rich List) of the vast Meadowhall shopping centre outside Sheffield. The £1.17bn sale of the complex in 1999 netted him about £420m. Continuing the family’s financial success, Eddie’s son Mark recently moved into renewables with the £250m purchase of wind farm assets in Scotland through his Blue Energy operation.

Air conditioning equipment king Tony Murray moved up to third position after growing his bank account by £120m to £1.17bn in 2016, nudging ahead of Lord Kirkham.

At 97, Mr Murray is the oldest person in The Rich List, but shows no signs of slowing down. His Wolverhampton-based Andrews Sykes Group, a hire company supplying heating and air-conditioning equipment, showed rising profits of £13m on £60m sales in 2015. Mr Murray served in the French army before moving to Britain and becoming a RAF navigator.

Elsewhere, Jack Tordoff, founder of JCT600 and last year’s winner of The Yorkshire Post’s Excellence in Business Lifetime Achievement Award, moved up to eighth position having grown his wealth by £12m to £395m.

Robert Watts, the Compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, said: “This year’s larger than ever Rich List lays bare how the fortunes of Britain’s richest 1,000 people have fared amid the astonishing events of the past 12 months.

“Our Yorkshire Rich List reinforces the county’s proud reputation for producing some of the UK’s most successful self-made men and women and shows the increasingly diverse ways fortunes are being made. Gone are the days when big money was usually amassed from finance, industry or a select band of other industries. Now we’re seeing vast fortunes built from activities as diverse as fitted furniture, greetings cards and plumbing.”